Drop Off Old Flags for Retirement

According to an announcement in the Pottstown Mercury, The Patriotic Order Sons of America (POSA) will be collecting old flags for a flag retirement ceremony. The organization is collecting the items to be discarded in observance of Flag Day on June 10.

Flags will be properly disposed of at the at 2 p.m. with Boy Scout Troop 105 of Schwenksville.

The public is welcome to drop off flags in the collection boxes, designed and constructed by member Michael Hess of Graterford, and currently located at the municipal buildings in the Perkiomen Valley area.

To date, there are red, white and blue-striped collection boxes at the municipal buildings in Schwenksville, Perkiomen, Lower Frederick, Upper Frederick, Skippack, Upper Salford and Eagleville facilities.

POSA focuses its efforts on carrying on traditions of patriotism. The organization focuses, according to its website, on an "appreciation of our heritage and freedom."

The volunteers of POSA will retire the flags according to their extensive American flag etiquette of disposal regulations, which can be found on the POSA site.

"When a Flag is worn beyond repair, it should be retired in a dignified manner," said the POSA site. "The most accepted manner is to cut the blue field of stars from the red and white stripes, thereby rendering it no longer a Flag. The resulting two pieces of cloth are then burned in one or two separate fires that are used for nothing else except the retirement ceremony."

The process must continue beyond the destruction of the material.

"The pieces of cloth should be thoroughly burned so that nothing is left that is recognizable as a Flag," said the POSA site. "The ashes should be scattered or buried."